Pink Lemonade
by Karartegirl99
Summary: What appears to be a poorly written young adult novel soon degenerates into something more horrendous as the setting, Desert Bluffs, is explored in greater detail. Some of the headcanons in this fanfiction are probably horridly out of date by this point. Contains, or will contain, description of blood and gore.
1. Chapter 1

My parents signed me up for an after-school archery class. It was only for a week, but it would still get in the way of my part time job. Not that it mattered much to me. My routine will always bleed into itself so that one activity becomes indistinguishable from the next. This time next week everything would be back to normal and I'd forget that there was ever any change.

But that was next week. In the here and now I had changes to make. I switched to a later shift at work, I bought some caffeine pills (for the later shift), and, since this left an extra twenty minutes in my schedule, my teachers increased my homework load, so that solved that. That monday, I rode a jeep out to a field on the outskirts of town along with the rest of the archery students.

The archery instructor, Ms. Barley, had arrived early to set up the range. There were target dummies made of styrofoam, and off to the side was a bow rack full of a variety of plastic bows. "Good morning class," said Ms. Barley as she dry-fired a longbow. "We have a great week ahead of us! Everybody divide into groups of two - there aren't enough bows so we're going to share."

The class mechanically partnered up. My partner was an attractive boy named Gabriel, with dark curled hair and skin like sunlit honey. "You're a fine young lady," he said to me as I nocked my arrow.

"Thank you, but you're distracting me."

"Is there a pretty brain behind that pretty face?" he teased. I think he was flirting.

I exhaled, aimed, and shot my arrow right in the training dummy's face.

Ms. Barley clapped politely. "Wonderful aim, Jess!"

"I had aimed for the crotch."

Gabriel laughed. "Well, whatever you did, try to keep doing it! That was amazing. Very powerful shot, too."

"I felt powerful."

"That's very important in any sport," said Gabriel. "Just keep feeling powerful."

As the lesson progressed, the feeling began to fade and my aim became worse and worse. The only shot I made after that that was even remotely praiseworthy was one that hit the post that the training dummy was taped to. Ms. Barley had to physically yank my arrow out. Several people congratulated me as we rode back to town in the jeep, but Gabriel remained thoughtfully silent.

The jeep dropped us off in the Business District, and everyone wandered off towards previous engagements. Gabriel offered to take me to the library to join his study group, and I declined, though I still had homework to do and there was probably going to be a test in school tomorrow. He left without me as I worked on my paper in an unclean bus shelter, waiting for my shift to start.

After hours of filing papers and writing shorthand, I took a bus home. We passed streets full of carbon copy apartment buildings, ground floor coffee shop after ground floor coffee shop, until the bus stopped in front of a neighborhood with tall, old stone buildings. It was a change to come home at twilight instead of the swelling heat of midday. There were cars stalled in the road.

I stepped off the bus and entered my building. It was an old tenement with the potential to be cozy, though fluorescents whitewashed the interior and the walls were in need of a repainting. Two flights of stairs later and I was in the apartment, having walked in on my family eating dinner without me.

"Hello, Jessica," said my mother, smiling over a still-steaming stockpot.

"Can you teach me archery, Jess?" Karmen, my younger sister, was smiling a little too widely.

"You'll have to wait until you take the class yourself, young lady. Have a seat, Jessica, I'll spoon you some beef."

I slid into my spot at the table as my mother dumped what looked like discolored spaghetti onto my plate. It made the room smell warm, but its taste was either too strong or not strong enough.

"It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" said my father.

"Mmf," I said through a mouthful of mystery meat.

"Were you good at archery?"

I swallowed my food. "Yes. I hit the dummy in the head."

"Did blood come out?" asked Karmen.

"No."

"If anyone could draw blood from a dummy, it'd be you, Jessica," said my dad. I forced a smile.

The rest of the meal was uneventful, and everything was silent until the evening news came on at nine and my father turned it on as background noise. It was clearly a slow news day, since the announcer was saying something about fighting cancer with kindness. "Well, I'm gonna do my history report," said Karmen, disappearing into the family study. My mother followed after, cheerfully berating her procrastination. I went to the bedroom I shared with my sister and fell asleep on one of the beds.


	2. Chapter 2

I got up before dawn the next morning. My mother was already up, making orange juice in the high-tech juicer in the kitchen. Karmen was adjusting her school uniform. Father had already left for work.

"Brush your hair, Jessica," my mother chirped.

"Yes, Jessica," Karmen said. I ignored her and put on my blazer.

"You got your homework done, right?" my mother asked.

"Yes, before work."

"Good, good! Well, have fun at school! I hope you get good grades and learn a lot of applicable knowledge!" She handed me my bag and shooed my sister and me out the door.

School passed in a blur of unremembered routine. When the final bell rang, I had to remind myself not to take the bus to work. I congregated with the rest of the archery class to wait for the jeep to pick us up.

"I've been reading up on technique," said Gabriel. "What about you, Jess? Do you think you've improved?"

"I don't know." The jeep arrived, and we clambered on.

"I suppose the class itself is for improving, but you should really put more effort in."

"Mhm."

The jeep pulled away from the sidewalk and landed right in the middle of rush hour traffic. One of the other students asked Gabriel about studying and time management, and as they talked I worked on my science homework, glancing up every now and then to watch people go by out of the window.

When we got to the range, Ms. Barley was tying balloons to the backs of very energetic rabbits. "We're working on moving targets today," she said. "Get with the same partners you had last time."

Gabriel grabbed a bow from the rack and handed it to me. I took the bow, and as I shot I felt a lot less powerful than I had yesterday. The arrow fell four feet away from me and ten feet from the balloon targets.

"Why don't you shoot again, and I'll help you on your aim." He took my hand and guided me as I pulled back the bowstring. One of us must have moved at the last second, because the bow jilted upward and the arrow flew into the bushes a hundred yards off.

"I'll get it." I darted away to where I thought I saw the arrow fall. By the time I got there, I could no longer hear the archery class behind me and could only barely see the dummies they were still shooting at. I briefly scanned the area before getting down on my knees to search the undergrowth. The arrow was nowhere to be seen.

I could hear a soft rustling coming from a line of bushes off to the side. Slowly brushing the branches aside, I saw a monkey, or, a chimpanzee, or, something that looked like a monkey but wasn't covered in as much hair. It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at a person. "Are you lost?"

"Kill me quickly." The person, who seemed to be about my age or a little younger, was shaking. Liquid was pouring from their eyes and nose and I could barely hear what they were saying. "Kill me, please. I don't want to turn into one of you."

"Are you sick? Should I get someone?"

"No, just kill me! That's what you do, isn't it? Your face is covered with the blood of the dead! God, I don't want my skin to go away! I love my skin!"

"You won't lose your skin, come on." I sat down next to them and attempted to comfort them, but I was far from qualified for this sort of thing. "We'll get you to a specialist, and everything will be alright."

"No," they whispered, but they didn't move.

"What's your name?"

"Emmy."

"So you're a girl, then?" She didn't look like a girl. She didn't look like a boy, either. She looked like a very scared clay sculpture.

She curled up into a tight ball. It didn't look like I was going to get much more out of her, but I decided to keep trying. I thought for a moment. "I'm a girl," I said. "I guess. I'm Jess, by the way. How long have you been out here? Do you have somewhere to be?"

No answer. Maybe she had actually turned into a clay sculpture. "What grade are you in at school?" I asked.

"Stop," she muttered.

"Stop what?"

"Just stop."

I was about to say something else, but there was something in her voice that made me think better of it. I found my arrow and left.

It was only a small break in the routine. I went back to the archery class, rode the jeep back to town, did homework, did my job, and went home. Everything bled into everything else like it always did, but this time an underlying image wouldn't leave me alone. I wasn't supposed to have seen that girl. She wasn't supposed to have been there for me to see.

"Hello, Jessica," said my mother as I trudged through the apartment door. "We ate dinner without you, I'm afraid, but you took your time coming home."

"Did I?" I dropped my bag by the door and grabbed some leftovers from the fridge. The oven clock said 22:47. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's alright." She set a small place for me at the table. "I'm sure you were very busy."

I sat down and began to eat. She sat in the chair next to mine, watching me closely.

"Your boss called," she said, fiddling with a dinner fork. "They said you were a bit absentminded at work today."

"I guess I was. I've been weird all afternoon, but I'm sure I'll be better in the morning."

"Let's hope so," she said, smiling as she cleared away my empty plate. "If you don't pay attention to your work, you won't appreciate it. Well, get your homework done. Karmen's already asleep, so be quiet when you go in. Goodnight, Jessica."

I bit my lip. "Goodnight."

She left the room, leaving me to stare at the bloodstained tablecloth and wonder why I dreaded the thought of going to school in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

Karmen shook me awake sometime around two. I had managed to fall asleep in my own bed, though my pajamas were only half on.

"I meant to talk to you before you went to bed," Karmen whispered, "but I didn't get the chance. I figured you were on autopilot. What happened to you today?"

"I don't know," I murmured. "An invalid thought I was a murderer or something."

"When was this?"

"Sometime during archery class. Please just stop asking questions, we need rest."

"But this is big, Jess," Karmen insisted. "This is extraordinary. What'd they say?"

I grunted.

"Is that an 'I don't want to talk to you' noise?" She waited a bit for an answer, but I was silent. "We'll talk tomorrow when you have less of an excuse to be silent, Jessica."

I flinched at the use of my birth name, but she ignored me and went back to her own bed. I spent several hours void of thought before I realized it was time to get up.

Karmen and I dressed in silence, and we remained silent as our mother gave us granola bars for breakfast and sent us out to wait for the bus at the edge of the buildings' square. The usual crowd of students were there, as well as several early-bird businessmen, everyone ready for a day that never saw the sunrise.

"Jess!" Gabriel called. "Good morning!" He made his way through the crowd to stand next to me, getting odd stares because up until then the day had been silent and stationary.

"Do you always take this bus at this time?" I asked him.

"No," Gabriel smiled. "I ran here from the Sandsong Complex. The subway line there was down for maintenance."

"Huh."

"You must do great in gym class if you can run all the way here without getting hit by a car," said Karmen.

"Yeah."

We watched the cars come in pulses of light until the bus arrived, blocking traffic for a moment as we clambered on board. Outside the window, the streets glowed dark. The hospital lamps were lit and their buildings buzzed silver around the intersection as we approached the business district. No one could be seen and yet more people boarded at every stop.

"The Academy," the bus speakers announced, and we stepped off onto a floodlit sidewalk in front of the main school entrance. Once inside, Karmen branched off down a middle school hallway. Gabriel followed me to class, asking me what AP classes I was in and whether I was taking Dentistry as my vocational course. I didn't manage to lose him until I slipped into the lecture hall for my first class.

When the lunch bell rang Karmen accosted me in the hallway. "Can we talk now?"

"I have to go to lunch."

She smiled and shook her head. "No you don't, I have extra rations that you can have. Now you said you saw the invalid during archery class, right? Outside city limits?"

"Yes, why?"

"We'll do homework outside city limits today. Get your homework done now so we'll have more time later."

"We can't do homework in school."

"Of course not." Her smile widened. "Lunch period doesn't count as school, Jess. Don't take the jeep back to the city today, 'kay? Bye." She followed the dwindling crowd as it continued to move towards the cafeteria. I ducked into a nearby bathroom and worked on calculus.

At the end of the day I went to wait for my ride to archery, like usual. Gabriel and the others were already there. "Your sister said to give you this," he said as he handed me a tin lunch box. It was full of spaghetti.

"Thank you," I said, curling spaghetti strands around my pencil. "Where'd she get this?"

"Well, she said you weren't hungry at lunch, so you asked her to save it for later." Gabriel was smiling. "That is what happened, right?"

I nodded and began to eat. I wasn't finished by the time the jeep appeared, and as I got on board the driver gave me weird glances. When the lunch box was empty I tossed it out the side of the car. Gabriel laughed.

In archery Ms. Barley taught us how to aim to kill, and after class I asked her if I could stay to practice on my own. Soon everyone else had driven back to town. I stood alone in the desert with a bow and arrow and a target.

"Jess!" Karmen waved to me from the city limits. "Good to see you did what I said for once! Where's the invalid?"

"I haven't looked for her," I said.

"Really?" Karmen came closer, looking me up and down. "Is that your bow? I'm sure it will come in handy. Now, where'd you see her last?"

I surveyed the miles of empty scrubland around us before pointing to a spot near the city wall. "I think it was over there somewhere."

"Oh, good! Close to home." Karmen dropped her bag and headed off to where I had pointed. I followed her, but all we found were trampled weeds and sharpened rocks.

"Well, someone was here," I said.

Karmen laughed. "Looks like the situation's been taken care of, Jess."

I was neither disappointed nor relieved. Something hit me hard in the back of my neck, and when the dizziness passed I looked behind me and saw Emmy the invalid, looking weak on her feet and more malnourished than I remembered.

"I threw a rock at you," she said. "Fight me."

"Why?" I asked, taking off my coat and rolling up my sleeves.

"Because I've challenged you."

"Maybe we should talk this out," said Karmen. Emmy and I stared. "I mean," Karmen added, "it's an unfair fight. Just look at her, Jess, she's half dead."

"But she wants to fight."

"She wants to die."

After several moments of silence, Emmy spoke. "Well?"

"We probably shouldn't kill you," I said. "Why do you want to die, anyway?"

Emmy sniffed. She was shaking like a leaf, and liquid was pouring from her face again. She spat on the ground.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Jess?" Karmen asked me, checking her watch. "It's 17:50. You go on ahead, I'll finish up here."

I grabbed my bag and put my jacket back on. I had a routine to get back to.


	4. Chapter 4

"Your ribs look lovely today," Gabriel said as I passed by him at the water cooler.

I glanced at him for a moment, shifting the pile of memos I was carrying. "Uh, thanks."

"How was staying after archery class? Did you get in good practice?"

"Yes."

"Well, I hope you had time to do your homework. You can always study with me sometime if you need to."

"Okay." I said goodbye to Gabriel and returned to my desk. Outside the window, the sky was bluer than ever even though the sun would set in five minutes. I was glad that Karmen was taking care of everything. My hands cramped as I typed.

Soon my shift ended and I took the bus line home. I hadn't had a chance to think things over yet, and as I climbed the stairs the smell of dinner cooking blocked out any further thought. I had made it home early enough to see my mother setting the table when I opened the door.

"Is Karmen home?" I asked.

"In her room doing her homework."

"She's not going to eat with us?"

"Not until her homework is finished she isn't," she sang. "Now go wash the calluses off your hands and get ready for dinner."

I rinsed off in the hall bathroom. The air smelled warm, but the dinner itself was slimy and cold and I used the fact that I had had a late lunch as an excuse to eat very little of it. My stomach acid bubbled as I helped with the dishes.

"Will Karmen eat when she's finished?"

"I'll leave her ration on the counter for her," my father said. "If she hurries, it won't attract bugs."

"How fair of you," my mother said to him as she kissed him on the cheek. "Run along, Jessica," she added. "Work harder than your sister does."

I shrugged and went to my room.

Karmen looked up at me as I entered. "Jess, could you come over here for a second?"

She was sitting on the floor beside her bed, and as I approached I saw that she was not doing homework. A person was tied up on the floor next to her, soaked in blood. "What's this?"

"It's Emmy," Karmen said. "I had to disguise her to be able to carry her through the city without being noticed. Don't worry, the blood's just spaghetti sauce."

"Why did you tie her up, though?"

"Well, she wouldn't come willingly."

"So you're not doing your homework?"

Karmen smiled. "I did it during lunch, remember? Mom and Dad are just pissed because I skipped tutoring session." She wiped some of the fake blood out of Emmy's hair. "I figured we have to help her."

"Okay. Why?"

"Think of all the stories she can tell! Don't you want things to be a bit more interesting?"

"Do things have to be interesting?"

"Of course! Help me while I untie her."

As Karmen skillfully undid the knots she had tied, I made sure Emmy didn't run away. She looked really desperate for death now, so there was less concern about her escape than there was about her attempting to engage us in mortal combat. "Alright, Emmy," Karmen said, throwing the rope aside. "Where do you come from?"

Emmy shook her head.

"Karmen, I don't think this is a good idea."

She ignored me and kept talking. "This isn't an interrogation, Emmy. We're just some bored kids who found a new toy. What were you doing outside of the city walls, anyway?"

"I, was, str - uh, dying."

I didn't say anything. I was still a bit shocked that we had found and kidnapped a traumatized homeless girl, but Karmen seemed unconcerned. "So you went out to die?" she asked. Emmy shrugged.

The radio came on in the other room, and the interrogation was cut short. Emmy was tied up again and her ears were plugged with cotton so she wouldn't hear anything. Karmen and I left to join our parents in the other room, who were listening too intently to the news to address us.

"Did we miss anything?" I asked.

"Probably another missing kid story," said Karmen. My mother shushed her.

"Do you remember that time," the radio buzzed, "when some people weren't happy, folks? One of them called me on the phone recently to thank me for helping them, and it made me wonder where all those once unhappy people are now. Let's be like them and use our newfound happiness to reach a sort of Nirvana, say, where we're free from this lovely little life of ours. Onto our next story, internet servers were down today, causing distress in several districts..."

The news never seemed to change any more than anything else did. I had no trouble at all letting my mind wander as the announcer droned. Karmen was picking her teeth, and as the announcer said something she laughed. Mother shushed her again.

When the show was over I hardly noticed. Karmen practically dragged me back into our bedroom, though this time we didn't untie Emmy, merely unplugging her mouth and ears. It occurred to me how odd it was that we had untied her at all.

"What time is it?" Emmy asked the moment her mouth was free.

I glanced at the bedside clock. "20:17."

"Emmy, if you're going to want to live with us, you're going to need to know how hard it is to keep your mind," Karmen said. "And don't tell me that you don't want to live with us because killing you is not an option. Now, are you hungry?"

Emmy was crying like a wounded animal. Karmen covered her mouth with her hand until she quieted down.

"We might as well turn her in to the authorities if you're going to treat her like this," I said.

"She'd cry no matter who had found her, Jess. You know that." She pulled a tin box out of her backpack. It was another lunch ration, more spaghetti of course, and she force fed Emmy as she talked. "I don't like this either, but I'm sure she'll feel better once we leave her alone for a while. Just like you after… She'll be just fine."

Globs of spaghetti drooped from Emmy's mouth, but it wasn't messy so much as pathetic. She was already covered in tomato sauce.

"Why don't you talk to her, Jess?" Karmen asked. "She seems to like you better."

"She doesn't need anyone to talk to her," I said. "Not really. You're doing a good job. I think that's all we can do for right now."

We laid Emmy on the floor in a way that would prevent her from swallowing her tongue, and I put a spare blanket over her and plugged her ears back up with cotton. Spaghetti continued to dribble from her mouth onto the carpet, and I waited a moment before putting the gag back in. I went to bed and had no trouble falling asleep.


End file.
